Solid materials are often shipped and stored in chunks or billets for ease of handling of the solid materials. It is often necessary to break these billets of solid material into smaller pieces so that the solid material can be used most effectively and efficiently. For example, in some manufacturing processes it is necessary to melt solid materials to carry out the process. Billets of solid material are melted faster and more efficiently if the billets are broken into smaller pieces before being subjected to heat. Breaking the billets into smaller pieces increases the surface area of the solid material. This allows a greater area of the solid material to be instantly subjected to heat and thus increases the rate of heat transfer to the solid material.
Some solid materials are particularly difficult to break into smaller pieces. For example, solid materials having a wax-like consistency can cause processing problems when attempts are made to cut or shave the wax-like materials. Such materials are somewhat sticky and tend to adhere to and clog conventional cutters and shavers. Once cutters and shavers are clogged, the cutters and shavers are no longer effective and must be cleaned before effective operation can resume. The cleaning of clogged cutters and shavers can result in the loss of valuable processing time.
It is particularly desirable in certain processes for solid materials to be broken into smaller pieces and melted at the processing site rather than at a remote location. However, processing sites are often very crowded with equipment and there may not be much space for equipment to perform such tasks.
Smaller pieces of wax-like solids tend to agglomerate when they contact one another, thus, when billets of wax-like material are broken into smaller pieces and not immediately melted, the smaller pieces tend to agglomerate and reform a large solid block. This defeats the purpose of breaking the solid billets into smaller pieces. Further, if the solid material is melted at a location remote from the processing site, the melted material must then be transported under heated conditions to the processing site. This requires costly equipment and a large amount of energy.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus for breaking billets of solid material into smaller pieces which does not clog and which occupies a minimum space.